Arab Diplomats Warn Washington Against a Pro-israel Policy

Arab envoys in the United States and pro-Arab Americans joined this week-end in threatening that American interests in the Middle East would suffer as a result of United States friendship for Israel. They spoke at the first annual conference of the American Friends of the Middle East.

Dr. Charles Malik, Lebanese Minister to the U.S. and chairman of the United Nations Human Rights Commission, suggested that Israel cede territory in Western Galilee for the repatriation of the Palestine Arab refugees and that the Western Powers reiterate the tripartite declaration of May, 1950, in which they guaranteed the borders of the Middle East states against aggression. He said that Israel was a “source of deep rancor” to the Arabs who believe that the West “has, so to speak, handed them over to the Jews.”

Farid Zeinedine, Syrian Ambassador to the U.S., declared that Zionism had “undermined the moral ascendancy which the United States enjoyed in the Middle East and sapped the United Nations of much of its moral worth in the eyes of the Middle East peoples.

Americans who addressed the conference included: Henry R. Luce, editor-in-chief of Time, Life and Fortune, who urged the United States to “do justly between the Israelis and Arabs,” and to “show mercy to the refugees;” Edwin A. Locke, Jr., former U.S. regional ambassador in the Near East, who urged President Eisenhower to express “our love and admiration for the Arab people, our understanding of their problems.” Other speakers included Dorothy Thompson, Lowell Thomas and Dr. Stephen Penrose, president of the American University of Beirut.